David Mitchell: number9dream

Give me Blade Runner, give me The Matrix, … even give me Vanilla Sky, … but not hundreds of pages of pretentious writing and a plot that I cannot muster any enthusiasm for.

Post-rain sweat and grime regunge Tokyo. The puddles are steaming dry in the magnified heat. A busker sings so off key that passers-by have a moral responsibility to steal his change and smash his guitar on his head. I head back towards Shinjuku submarine station. The crowds march out of step, beaten senseless by the heat. My father’s doorbell is lost at an unknown grid reference in my Tokyo street guide. A tiny nugget of earwax deep inside my ear where I can’t dig it out is driving me crazy.